Buying A Carpet Steam Cleaner - 5 Features To Look For In A Carpet Steam Cleaner
How does your carpet look? Time for a replacement
? Maybe not. It could just be time for a good carpet steam cleaner.
If you haven't been steam cleaning your carpet, or have always paid professionals to do it for you, you might be amazed at how well a home carpet steam cleaner can clean your carpets. A good quality machine is quite effective. If your carpet is looking a little ratty because you haven't had it cleaned in a long time, it's probably worth trying a good steam clean before replacing it. Certainly a lot cheaper than a new carpet and less inconvenient.
The basic features of a carpet steam cleaner will be the same no matter the brand. They all use warm or hot water, not actually steam on carpets, despite the name, plus detergent, scrub the carpet in some way, and suck the dirty water back out of the carpet. It's pretty amazing how much dirt they can take out for you.
Each model has features for you to consider for just how exactly the carpet steam cleaner gets the job done. They may scrub in a particular way, give you a certain amount of control over how much detergent or water gets used on your carpet, or speed up drying in some way.
1. Extra Detergent
It used to be that you would put the carpet detergent into the water in the steam cleaner directly. That was just the usual way to handle it.
Now many machines have separate areas for detergent and water. This gives you more control. You can use just a little detergent or even just plain water over much of the carpet, then give it a blast of detergent over stains. This is great if you have a lot of stains and spots on your carpet.
2. Scrubbing Brushes
For upright steam vacuums, there are two basic types of scrubbing brushes.
The first resembles the beater brush on your regular vacuum and works in the same way. It loosens up the dirt and helps pull it out. Some people prefer this kind of brush.
The second kind spins facing right down on the carpet. There's usually a row of seven of these or so. These are my personal preference. They seem to do a better job in my opinion.
3. Water Containers
There are two ways clean and dirty water are handled by carpet steam cleaners. They can be in a single, two sided container, or in two separate containers.
This is where personal preferences come in. I like the two separate containers. It's not at all uncommon for the dirty water container to fill up faster than the clean water container empties. I like being able to decide if I want to get more clean water or just leave the container there for now.
Others prefer the two in one, so they can deal with carrying around just one container.
4. Suction
It's extremely important that your steam vacuum suck the water up really well as you go. Too much water left too long in the carpet leads to mold growth and may damage the flooring beneath your carpet. You want your carpet to be as dry as possible.
You are a part of this process. Go too fast in vacuuming the water up as you clean, and you're going to leave things pretty wet. You need to move slowly and watch to see when the vacuum is no longer pulling up significant water from your carpet. Most models have a clear plastic at the front of the vacuum so you can easily see the water coming up and know when you aren't getting any more of it.
5. Heated Air
A few models blow heated air onto your carpet as you work to help it dry sooner. Some love this feature, but others say it really isn't particularly effective. If you're good at getting the water out of your carpet with the vacuum part of the steam cleaner, you may not need this feature.
by: Stephanie Foster
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Buying A Carpet Steam Cleaner - 5 Features To Look For In A Carpet Steam Cleaner Anaheim